Actually, it is possible to intentionally cause an avalanche;) Otherwise I would tend to agree (that is until an earthquake caused by natural gas fracking wipes out Oklahoma City...)
Exactly - I'm still waiting for the first successful lawsuit against a meteorologist for ruining someone's picnic (or more seriously, failing to predict a tornado or the exact path of a hurricane).
One real advantage in many cases is health insurance. Many companies only allow spouses to be covered by the insurance plan. Though I think mine does allow registered domestic partners, but *only* if they are same sex...
Again, I'm not saying vaccinations cause austism. I am saying that the argument from the Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode, the essence of which is your entire argument, is itself bullshit
I don't think their argument is bullshit at all.
I will give you that it would cost a lot less to raise a dead child than an autistic one, but most parents would still prefer their child be autistic than dead. And statistically without the vaccines of the last century, you'd be looking at more like 30-50 dead children for every autistic one (in 1900, 30% of all deaths were children under 5, while today it is about 1%). Also, autism is a spectrum disorder - the "1 in 110" or 0.5% or whatever that people quote includes a huge gamut, and that cost you quote is on the very rare but very severe side.
The difference (well besides the fact that gradual mutation, DNA recombination, and sexual reproduction are used instead of molecular cloning and targeting, etc) is that the genetic changes in dogs had potentially thousands of years of exposure to evolutionary pressures (as you should know by your username!;) Throwing a bunch of bacterial DNA into corn in a lab could potentially bypass that built-in evolutionary defense mechanism by *rapidly* introducing change into a huge population. One unexpected side effect (maybe it's now more susceptible to a virus or is extra tasty to an insect pest) could quickly wipe out a huge percentage of the species.
And it's even worse in Monsanto's case with corn, than say, engineering a pig to produce human hormones, or something, since they have shown clearly have no control over the propagation.
Honestly, I'm not really worried about *eating* GMO foods. I'd be more worried that we are reducing genetic variation (even more than our large scale monoculture food crops already do!) so much that we will be really screwed once something we just didn't expect comes along and systematically eradicates those species...
I don't really think that's true, either. Are you basing these concerns on any fact or just speculation/assumption??
There are a few companies making different kinds of flu vaccines, with different formulations, for example. Specifically (didn't take long for me to look up these details) they are using thermasiol in multi-use vials (much cheaper to produce and distribute) but the single use and attenuated live vaccine doses don't use it. You may have to pay a bit more to get those, but, hey, those are the breaks (and almond butter costs more than peanut butter!) Again sort of like antibiotics - a doctor would reasonably prefer to give you the cheaper sulfa or penicillin if it worked and you could take it (and if you have to pay for it, you'd prefer that, too!), and would only prescribe Cipro (since it's more expensive, can have more side effects of its own, and honestly it's one of the few left that is still effective on some resistant bacteria etc) if necessary.
Generally you don't find out what you are allergic to until it happens. Sounds like the woman in the article may have made an assumption, didn't bother letting anyone figure out what the root cause was and so didn't give anyone a chance to try other vaccines anyway. Then again, that's some assumption there by me since there really were not enough details either way to know...
If by "creative breeding" you mean after convincing a farmer to screw his cow you ended up with offspring that produced human breast milk. Otherwise, it's a bit different...
Eh, this is one case I wouldn't blame drug company greed. One of the preservatives in question (thimerosal) has been very effective in vaccines for decades. A *very* small minority might be allergic (that, too is up for debate), but who's to say the replacement doesn't cause other allergies? Different people are allergic to different things.
Which is "better", peanut butter or almond butter? For me it's a matter of taste, but for others it depends on which one can kill them! Same with drugs like antibiotics - some people are allergic to sulfa, some to penicillin, some to tetracycline, etc. Doesn't mean one is definitively better than another. In fact, they usually have preferred uses (like preservatives), and doctors have to fall back to others when a patient has a problem with the most effective one.
Reminds me of the last Downton Abbey episode (my girlfriend made me watch it!;) It focused on the Spanish flu of 1918-19. Like recent nasty respiratory flus, it was most dangerous to those who were otherwise in the best health, 20-40 year olds.
Anyway, I wish people would read more history and fewer tabloids. I'd imagine the 25 million who died from that virus wished they had the luxury of refusing modern vaccines in the face of all scientific evidence...
Yeah, I would hope the doctor would at least say "ok, I will be happy to look at your son's case to help determine whether vaccines play any part."
If she agreed to that, and it *was* determined that the vaccines were the cause (which is VERY unlikely - in fact, the preservatives used in certain vaccines are MUCH more likely to be a source of allergic reaction than the vaccine itself - in which case there are probably alternatives) I would hope any decent pediatrician would still take them as a patient. In fact, *real* cases like that would be a primary reason for being so careful with other patients that don't have a valid excuse and (knowingly or not) just want to ride the herd immunity...
That was my first reaction, as well, until (as some others have pointed out) Kodak sued Apple first last month in a fit of patent-trolling desperation before declaring bankruptcy. This is really just Apple's counter-suit. No sympathy for Kodak there...
No, of course not. Any doctor will tell you that flu shots are only moderately effective anyway, and of course have to be given every year based on guesses as to the season's strains. The slippery slope argument is the sort of FUD that is feeding the anti-vaccine kooks...
These are pediatricians, so they are more worried about things like MMR, DTaP, meningiococcus, etc. Vaccines that don't just reduce the chance of a moderately annoying winter bug, but have unquestionably saved the lives of millions of children worldwide since their invention.
And from TFA: "Her older child had gastrointestinal trouble and regressed development after receiving vaccines, she said, which she believes were related to the shots." This is the same "proof" by anecdote people wrongly use in the autism argument. Sure, one doctor signed a waiver, but same thing with painkiller addiction, it only takes one doctor willing to sign a prescription, they just have to look hard enough (or be a celebrity and no one will ask)...
Probably one of the reasons AT&T dropped all of their SMS plans except the $20/month unlimited one - most heavy SMS iPhone users are now going to send closer to 100 than 1000 SMS message per month, so they can now be screwed into paying $20 for something they rarely use, or screwed into paying $0.20 per message (ie $20 per 100) for something they rarely use.
My grandfathered plan has 200 SMS for $5, which would probably be perfect for many iPhone users (and which I have never exceeded even before iOS5), so of course that one is long gone...
Could be an option... though I'm sure LG (they have a similar wand-type TV remote right now) would be chomping at the bit to sue Apple for anything remotely resembling one given the way Apple has aggressively gone after competing phone and tablet designs:)
It would have audio decoding built in, so all that's needed is to hook it up to an amplifier for 5.1 audio, irrespective of the input (HDMI, SPDIF, whatever.)
The complicated stuff wouldn't be on the remote. If you're fiddling with the TV trying to set up the picture, the chances are you're right there anyway. Why add set up menus to the remote when you're not going to use them when sitting down?
The remote would be as basic as possible. Volume. Channel up/down. Menu
"Menu" brings up an interface that you literally point at, Wii style. You'd use that to browse listings, watch on-demand content, etc. It'd probably look a little Rokuish.
Actually, most of these are available now. There are TVs that can output audio via SPDIF or ARC (audio return channel on HDMI) - not via 6 channel analog, of course, which I guess is what you want... people just don't care about separate 5 channel HT amps these days, too niche (that being said, I have one;)
As for the remote, the higher end LG TVs have it now, and they are introducing it to more in the lower end models this year.
The TV would sit on your network. It would accept the usual inputs too. Unencrypted compressed content could be stored on any network storage device (it's all digital now anyway) and you'd be able to set up schedules giving you the most important part of DVR functionality.
Unfortunately it'd never work. Why? Because the effing cable and satellite companies would never work with it. So 75%+ of the population would end up with a clumsy UI and connection experience anyway. Urgh.
A networked Cablecard DVR (like Tivo Premiere or Moxi) solves much of this. If they added a few HDMI inputs it could act as a video preamp as well and you'd be 90% of the way there.
And that's what I was talking about originally... give me a high quality, large size 1080p display (OLED!) that I can feel confident about paying thousands of dollars on and may replace once a decade, and leave the whims of compatibility, performance, and new features to a cheaper set-top box...
I just don't see Apple integrating a BD player (since they have no incentive - they can't compete on hardware as it's already so commodity and they have no iTunes lock-in like their streaming video). And I doubt they are going to add a satellite tuner into a TV - the market is just too small (I'd even question whether they'd bother with Freeview, or any other limited audience technology. Apple has had at most *2* versions of their iPhone (GSM and CDMA) and the 4s has done away with that. I'm guessing they are going to leave the low-margin fragmented technology TV market to the local players like Loewe or the CE giants like Panasonic...
And that 2 piece Loewe without HDMI is your problem, 99% of the TVs out there have solved that;) HDMI alone solves over half the issues you mentioned.
Anyway, IMO your example is the perfect reason it won't happen...
Let me tell you something.... many MANY people can't hook up a TV input to save their lives (or would be glad to avoid having to do that)
Eh, I don't think that's really enough of a reason... almost anyone with cable or satellite (which is like 90% or more by now?) now has to hook up a TV input anyway.
With an Apple television they'd also have to hook it up to their home networking (they are unlikely to get 100% of their content from the Internet these days, since content providers have made sure individual TV shows are insanely expensive ($2-3 *per* 23 minute sitcom??) and live events like sports are still not really an option - and yes, mainstream America still likes their live sports;).
I think you overestimate the complexity of plugging in one HDMI port from a STB to a TV... it's most definitely not at "knowledgeable enthusiast". Not to mention an integrated Apple television this now implies signing up for iTunes, adding a credit card for purchases, etc. Someone resistant to technology is going to balk there far more often than plugging in one cable.
Or more likely, why an Apple branded TV with all of the software built-in won't succeed.
There is a reason Apple has stayed away from the TV market, and Jobs called the AppleTV "a hobby"... they haven't figured out the killer control mechanism yet (IMO Kinect has shown for media apps that gesture and voice aren't enough), and won't be able to make the absurd margins they already do on iPhones and iPads (with their expensive displays and touch screen, etc)
But why does that have to be *in* the TV? If all it does is display a video signal at as high of quality as possible, it can last for many years. If you stick a bunch of apps in it, inevitably the CPU or RAM become inadequate, it doesn't have the latest codec support, manufacturers stop supporting the software, whatever. If you keep it separate the display from the "computer" you can replace the latter every year or two and it's no big deal. (note the AppleTV is $100 and an iPad is $500+)
I have gone through at least 3 computers over the lifespan of my 21" LCD monitor (which I still have and love). If I had to pay for a new display every time I upgraded to something that ran the latest games, apps, etc, I'd be really annoyed. Same thing for the 60" plasma I bought last year.
I'm not saying the number isn't still high for most titles, but the console manufacturers do significant testing on all games and patches as well.
Add in a few hundred man-hours of work for the various mastering, verification, certification, and functional testing steps and that could easily be in the low 5 figures of labor cost...
One tiny detail this summary neglected to mention is Nortel went bankrupt 3 years ago.
They had no interest in pursuing the investigation because there was pretty much no way it was going to make their assets look any *more* valuable to buyers...
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Actually, it is possible to intentionally cause an avalanche ;) Otherwise I would tend to agree (that is until an earthquake caused by natural gas fracking wipes out Oklahoma City...)
Exactly - I'm still waiting for the first successful lawsuit against a meteorologist for ruining someone's picnic (or more seriously, failing to predict a tornado or the exact path of a hurricane).
How about your toothbrush? ;)
One real advantage in many cases is health insurance. Many companies only allow spouses to be covered by the insurance plan. Though I think mine does allow registered domestic partners, but *only* if they are same sex...
Otherwise, everyone would have a pre-nap (which is a kind of divorce insurance).
I think that's "pre-nup" (pre-nuptial). I looked up pre-nap on Urban Dictionary and it had an *entirely* different meaning...
Again, I'm not saying vaccinations cause austism. I am saying that the argument from the Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode, the essence of which is your entire argument, is itself bullshit
I don't think their argument is bullshit at all.
I will give you that it would cost a lot less to raise a dead child than an autistic one, but most parents would still prefer their child be autistic than dead. And statistically without the vaccines of the last century, you'd be looking at more like 30-50 dead children for every autistic one (in 1900, 30% of all deaths were children under 5, while today it is about 1%). Also, autism is a spectrum disorder - the "1 in 110" or 0.5% or whatever that people quote includes a huge gamut, and that cost you quote is on the very rare but very severe side.
The difference (well besides the fact that gradual mutation, DNA recombination, and sexual reproduction are used instead of molecular cloning and targeting, etc) is that the genetic changes in dogs had potentially thousands of years of exposure to evolutionary pressures (as you should know by your username! ;) Throwing a bunch of bacterial DNA into corn in a lab could potentially bypass that built-in evolutionary defense mechanism by *rapidly* introducing change into a huge population. One unexpected side effect (maybe it's now more susceptible to a virus or is extra tasty to an insect pest) could quickly wipe out a huge percentage of the species.
And it's even worse in Monsanto's case with corn, than say, engineering a pig to produce human hormones, or something, since they have shown clearly have no control over the propagation.
Honestly, I'm not really worried about *eating* GMO foods. I'd be more worried that we are reducing genetic variation (even more than our large scale monoculture food crops already do!) so much that we will be really screwed once something we just didn't expect comes along and systematically eradicates those species...
I don't really think that's true, either. Are you basing these concerns on any fact or just speculation/assumption??
There are a few companies making different kinds of flu vaccines, with different formulations, for example. Specifically (didn't take long for me to look up these details) they are using thermasiol in multi-use vials (much cheaper to produce and distribute) but the single use and attenuated live vaccine doses don't use it. You may have to pay a bit more to get those, but, hey, those are the breaks (and almond butter costs more than peanut butter!) Again sort of like antibiotics - a doctor would reasonably prefer to give you the cheaper sulfa or penicillin if it worked and you could take it (and if you have to pay for it, you'd prefer that, too!), and would only prescribe Cipro (since it's more expensive, can have more side effects of its own, and honestly it's one of the few left that is still effective on some resistant bacteria etc) if necessary.
Generally you don't find out what you are allergic to until it happens. Sounds like the woman in the article may have made an assumption, didn't bother letting anyone figure out what the root cause was and so didn't give anyone a chance to try other vaccines anyway. Then again, that's some assumption there by me since there really were not enough details either way to know...
Genetically modified is just creative breeding
If by "creative breeding" you mean after convincing a farmer to screw his cow you ended up with offspring that produced human breast milk. Otherwise, it's a bit different...
Eh, this is one case I wouldn't blame drug company greed. One of the preservatives in question (thimerosal) has been very effective in vaccines for decades. A *very* small minority might be allergic (that, too is up for debate), but who's to say the replacement doesn't cause other allergies? Different people are allergic to different things.
Which is "better", peanut butter or almond butter? For me it's a matter of taste, but for others it depends on which one can kill them! Same with drugs like antibiotics - some people are allergic to sulfa, some to penicillin, some to tetracycline, etc. Doesn't mean one is definitively better than another. In fact, they usually have preferred uses (like preservatives), and doctors have to fall back to others when a patient has a problem with the most effective one.
I you haven't seen it, I thought Penn & Teller's take on this was brilliant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo
Reminds me of the last Downton Abbey episode (my girlfriend made me watch it! ;) It focused on the Spanish flu of 1918-19. Like recent nasty respiratory flus, it was most dangerous to those who were otherwise in the best health, 20-40 year olds.
Anyway, I wish people would read more history and fewer tabloids. I'd imagine the 25 million who died from that virus wished they had the luxury of refusing modern vaccines in the face of all scientific evidence...
Yeah, I would hope the doctor would at least say "ok, I will be happy to look at your son's case to help determine whether vaccines play any part."
If she agreed to that, and it *was* determined that the vaccines were the cause (which is VERY unlikely - in fact, the preservatives used in certain vaccines are MUCH more likely to be a source of allergic reaction than the vaccine itself - in which case there are probably alternatives) I would hope any decent pediatrician would still take them as a patient. In fact, *real* cases like that would be a primary reason for being so careful with other patients that don't have a valid excuse and (knowingly or not) just want to ride the herd immunity...
That was my first reaction, as well, until (as some others have pointed out) Kodak sued Apple first last month in a fit of patent-trolling desperation before declaring bankruptcy. This is really just Apple's counter-suit. No sympathy for Kodak there...
No, of course not. Any doctor will tell you that flu shots are only moderately effective anyway, and of course have to be given every year based on guesses as to the season's strains. The slippery slope argument is the sort of FUD that is feeding the anti-vaccine kooks...
These are pediatricians, so they are more worried about things like MMR, DTaP, meningiococcus, etc. Vaccines that don't just reduce the chance of a moderately annoying winter bug, but have unquestionably saved the lives of millions of children worldwide since their invention.
And from TFA: "Her older child had gastrointestinal trouble and regressed development after receiving vaccines, she said, which she believes were related to the shots." This is the same "proof" by anecdote people wrongly use in the autism argument. Sure, one doctor signed a waiver, but same thing with painkiller addiction, it only takes one doctor willing to sign a prescription, they just have to look hard enough (or be a celebrity and no one will ask)...
Probably one of the reasons AT&T dropped all of their SMS plans except the $20/month unlimited one - most heavy SMS iPhone users are now going to send closer to 100 than 1000 SMS message per month, so they can now be screwed into paying $20 for something they rarely use, or screwed into paying $0.20 per message (ie $20 per 100) for something they rarely use.
My grandfathered plan has 200 SMS for $5, which would probably be perfect for many iPhone users (and which I have never exceeded even before iOS5), so of course that one is long gone...
Could be an option... though I'm sure LG (they have a similar wand-type TV remote right now) would be chomping at the bit to sue Apple for anything remotely resembling one given the way Apple has aggressively gone after competing phone and tablet designs :)
Actually, most of these are available now. There are TVs that can output audio via SPDIF or ARC (audio return channel on HDMI) - not via 6 channel analog, of course, which I guess is what you want... people just don't care about separate 5 channel HT amps these days, too niche (that being said, I have one ;)
As for the remote, the higher end LG TVs have it now, and they are introducing it to more in the lower end models this year.
The TV would sit on your network. It would accept the usual inputs too. Unencrypted compressed content could be stored on any network storage device (it's all digital now anyway) and you'd be able to set up schedules giving you the most important part of DVR functionality.
Unfortunately it'd never work. Why? Because the effing cable and satellite companies would never work with it. So 75%+ of the population would end up with a clumsy UI and connection experience anyway. Urgh.
A networked Cablecard DVR (like Tivo Premiere or Moxi) solves much of this. If they added a few HDMI inputs it could act as a video preamp as well and you'd be 90% of the way there.
And that's what I was talking about originally... give me a high quality, large size 1080p display (OLED!) that I can feel confident about paying thousands of dollars on and may replace once a decade, and leave the whims of compatibility, performance, and new features to a cheaper set-top box...
I just don't see Apple integrating a BD player (since they have no incentive - they can't compete on hardware as it's already so commodity and they have no iTunes lock-in like their streaming video). And I doubt they are going to add a satellite tuner into a TV - the market is just too small (I'd even question whether they'd bother with Freeview, or any other limited audience technology. Apple has had at most *2* versions of their iPhone (GSM and CDMA) and the 4s has done away with that. I'm guessing they are going to leave the low-margin fragmented technology TV market to the local players like Loewe or the CE giants like Panasonic...
And that 2 piece Loewe without HDMI is your problem, 99% of the TVs out there have solved that ;) HDMI alone solves over half the issues you mentioned.
Anyway, IMO your example is the perfect reason it won't happen...
Let me tell you something.... many MANY people can't hook up a TV input to save their lives (or would be glad to avoid having to do that)
Eh, I don't think that's really enough of a reason... almost anyone with cable or satellite (which is like 90% or more by now?) now has to hook up a TV input anyway.
With an Apple television they'd also have to hook it up to their home networking (they are unlikely to get 100% of their content from the Internet these days, since content providers have made sure individual TV shows are insanely expensive ($2-3 *per* 23 minute sitcom??) and live events like sports are still not really an option - and yes, mainstream America still likes their live sports ;).
I think you overestimate the complexity of plugging in one HDMI port from a STB to a TV... it's most definitely not at "knowledgeable enthusiast". Not to mention an integrated Apple television this now implies signing up for iTunes, adding a credit card for purchases, etc. Someone resistant to technology is going to balk there far more often than plugging in one cable.
Or more likely, why an Apple branded TV with all of the software built-in won't succeed.
There is a reason Apple has stayed away from the TV market, and Jobs called the AppleTV "a hobby"... they haven't figured out the killer control mechanism yet (IMO Kinect has shown for media apps that gesture and voice aren't enough), and won't be able to make the absurd margins they already do on iPhones and iPads (with their expensive displays and touch screen, etc)
But why does that have to be *in* the TV? If all it does is display a video signal at as high of quality as possible, it can last for many years. If you stick a bunch of apps in it, inevitably the CPU or RAM become inadequate, it doesn't have the latest codec support, manufacturers stop supporting the software, whatever. If you keep it separate the display from the "computer" you can replace the latter every year or two and it's no big deal. (note the AppleTV is $100 and an iPad is $500+)
I have gone through at least 3 computers over the lifespan of my 21" LCD monitor (which I still have and love). If I had to pay for a new display every time I upgraded to something that ran the latest games, apps, etc, I'd be really annoyed. Same thing for the 60" plasma I bought last year.
I'm not saying the number isn't still high for most titles, but the console manufacturers do significant testing on all games and patches as well.
Add in a few hundred man-hours of work for the various mastering, verification, certification, and functional testing steps and that could easily be in the low 5 figures of labor cost...
Actually, the name came from a speeding sign on the Golden Gate Bridge... he was pretty close :)
One tiny detail this summary neglected to mention is Nortel went bankrupt 3 years ago.
They had no interest in pursuing the investigation because there was pretty much no way it was going to make their assets look any *more* valuable to buyers...